This week we continued reading The Whuffie Factor and this time the topic was community marketing. This part of the book was really another take on word-of-mouth marketing and the simplicity of it is really just that, simple. One line stuck out to me that really sums up the power and ease of community marketing, “140-character plain-text messages can be so much more powerful than million-dollar ads.”
The power of community marketing is not a new concept. People trust people they know and there is nothing new about that.
What is new is that people have much larger personal networks than ever before, so there is a larger amount of people who they consider trustworthy. The key to building whuffie is knowing how to tap into these networks and become one of these trusted people by making a genuine connection.
In the field of advertising, knowing your audience is one of the most important things to do and it was really interesting to read about who is using social networks now. Before, I always thought of online social networks as something more for the younger generation, and I think that is how many people saw them. However, the older generations are increasingly getting online and adopting these networks. This increase in usage for older age groups is an important change to know when putting out marketing messages via social networks.
But it is not enough to simply put out a marketing message. In order to be trusted and keep your social capital high, you need to be seen in these networks as a regular person, not a business trying to make a buck. People who post blatantly obvious marketing messages are almost instantly shot down. As Hunt wrote when talking about how people feel about paid blog posts, “If you are paid to post something, then it is not to be trusted,” and since trust is the most important factor in building your social capital, this should not be taken lightly.
Hunt also gives a list of ways to become “whuffie rich” that I think are very good. First she says to stop talking and start listening. This is important because too many times promotional messages come off in a “talking at you” way that is almost interrupting. If you are trying to get a message across to an audience, you need to listen to that audience in order to learn how to reach them in a way that is most effective. However, if you throw your message out there without a care, you will become just another promotional message that gets thrown aside.
The next pointer that Hunt gives is to become part of the community you serve. This is similar to the first tip because it is, again, about getting to know your audience. You need to figure out who it is you are serving and interact with them. If you do not become a part of the community that you are trying to reach, they will not care about you, or at least not care nearly as much as they would if you interacted with them regularly.
The next tip is to be notable and create amazing experiences for your customers. This one is pretty self-explanatory. If a customer does not think your product or service is notable, they will go somewhere else, simple as that. Even average quality products or services are not good enough. Every market is competitive and if your product does not “wow” the customers, you will not survive.
The fourth tip is to embrace the chaos. It is a hectic world, especially in the field of mass communications and advertising, and it can sometimes get overwhelming. You need to learn to be more agile and accept the mayhem while also knowing your own limits. Learning to not over-plan and promise more than you can deliver is key.
Finally, Hunt’s last pointer is to figure out how you are going to give back to the community. As I explained last week, you gain whuffie as you give it away. Helping people in your community is a wonderful way to gain trust and show the community that you are a respectable individual, causing them to accept your message. Once you figure out how your can give back, do it and keep doing it often.
That’s all I have for this week. Thank you for reading and have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
I thought it was interesting how in the text it talked about in no way can you buy whuffie. You have to earn it by gaining trust and relationships with the people who are interested in following. The time that Hunt put in with going to events and meeting people face-to-face sounds really drastic, but his results were amazing. If you are trying to buy whuffie, you for sure will be shot down. Build that trust first to gain social capital, and then throw in a promotion here and there!
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